Human Error
by Wisteria22
Summary: Sherlock made a mistake while dismantling Moriarty's network. His daughter, then, made a mistake and tried to care. Rated T for themes.
1. Chapter 1

I was never supposed to happen. I was a product of what my father calls human error. A mistake, if you will. Yet while eighty percent of people are accidents, I never grew up under the belief that both of my parents cared for me in the extreme. Both of my parents, according to the British government, died before I was born. And yet, here I am.

My father, a homosexual detective that actually has a functioning brain, had a bit of a problem. Some may even call it the final problem. Moriarty had created a vast criminal network, something that would require the most careful hand to untangle it all. Simply calling Uncle Mycroft wouldn't cut it this time. Moriarty began his plot soon after, determining that in order to entertain himself, my father had to die.

Clearly, he was not that successful. Otherwise, Casper the Friendly ghost would be recounting this story.

Instead, my father faked his death that day. He never slammed into the pavement. He never bled out, staring uselessly towards the sky. He was alive, the entire time. And his boyfriend, whom he never admits to being smitten with, stared at him dejectedly. Of course, it was natural that my father couldn't tell John Watson that he was alive. Being the blabber mouth he was, John would spoil the secret. But more importantly, he had won over my father's heart. In order to dismantle Moriarty's web, he needed clarity.

Somehow, this included staying with my mother in Miami, Florida. There was a minor case to be taken care of—a psychopath named Dexter—and it seemed logical for him to stay with her. After all, people do enjoy placing the dead together, regardless of whether or not they actually died. He spent a few months down there, learning more and more about Moriarty's network. One day, he went to dinner with her. A few weeks later, before he was due to head off to Belarus, my mother informed him that she was pregnant. At the time, no one had to have known about the dinner. No one would have had to know that my father, a homosexual man, managed to be seduced by…

Well. I don't believe I am legally allowed to say exactly who my mother is. Her website should give enough information to give you an idea if you are really curious. And besides, Dad always claimed that sexuality is largely the descriptor of the relative trend—curiosities can happen.

Anyways, Dad left on his assignment. My mother tended to her business, complaining as her figure became a little more rounded from the pregnancy. It didn't help her bring in anymore clients, I must say. Nine months flew by quickly, with Dad solving cases and untangling the web. Uncle Mycroft arranged for some extra care to be taken for my mother. He seemed to be concerned that another Holmes was going to be entering the world. No doubt, he theorized that I would damage his political reputation by becoming another hopeless druggie. I'm not sure who was more relieved the day that I was born.

Mother handed me over to my father as quickly as she could. It slowed him down a little bit, having to care for a baby while fighting crime. He might have been a little more thorough with the web if it hadn't been for me. What a shame, what a shame that he had a kid and couldn't do the job properly! When I was nearly two years old, my father gave me back to my mother. It was the start of a pattern. I would live with one of my parents until the other tired of me. By the time I was three, I was living with my father again, in his flat at 221B Baker Street. It was a bit of a nasty shock for Uncle John when he found out, but Aunt Mary insisted in covering me in flowers. Neither of them knew about me until after the wedding. It saved me the horror of wearing a dress.

I attended primary school, just the same as everyone else. When I was ten, they finally realized that I was gifted, and placed me into the honors program. Dad still hated having to go to parent teacher conferences, deducing awkward affairs for my amusement. In middle school, I was placed in the advanced math program, narrowly missing out on a spot for science and writing. Dad wasn't all too pleased. It was around then that things started happening to me. I would hear things that never happened. At first, it was a text alert, when a text never came in. Then, it was the sound of a gun, firing in the distance. As it progressed more and more, I realized that I had started to talk to myself.

My first breakdown happened in eighth grade. Dad was out with Uncle John, working a case. Only Mrs. Hudson, who was like a grandmother to me, remained at home. She didn't hear me. No one could have. I had locked myself in my room, curled into a ball, and started to cry. I was terrified that I was going insane, losing my mind. And naturally, there was no one that I could talk to about it. Uncle locked Dad up for doing drugs. Imagine what he would have done to me?

And finally, I made it out of the tiny school. I was sent to the public high school, one little girl in a sea of a thousand others. I managed to pull myself into honors English, advanced math, and advanced science. Dad was feeling a little more pleased with my grades, insisting that I continue band and attempt to learn another language. I was a little bit slow for the taste of him and my uncle, I assume. Yet I didn't care. This year was the best and the worst. I fell in love with a boy, a silly boy with an adorable smile that melted my heart. Dad always said that caring was not an advantage. He warned me not to pursue relationships with other people, _especially_ boys.

I didn't listen to him.

I dated that boy, I gave him my heart. I let him see me, for who I felt that I truly was. But in the end, it wasn't enough for him. I was the freak that could tell who a nameless text came from. Everything I found to be normal was strange to him. So I hid. I became the girl that he wanted, the sympathetic little creature with empathy. I faked having a sex drive for him. At some point, I even believed the lie that I had wrapped my head around, even when he cheated on me. The cheating lasted for months. I pretended not to notice, and when he told me about it, I pretended not to care.

I pretended to be fine, that the gaping hole that formed in my chest wasn't there. I pretended to display the same interest when Dad mentioned a case. I hid inside of the darkness, determined to fool everyone into thinking that I was okay. After all, I had done it before. I never had friends. Why, then, would I feel so hurt if some boy decided that I wasn't good enough for him?

It was only when Dad found me with the scarf pulled taught around my neck that the façade slipped. Previously, no one had been allowed to see me when my emotions got the best of me. I would hide inside of myself until I could go to a space to properly grieve. A place where I could lay out the broken pieces and shove them away, where I would never have to think about them anymore. In hindsight, this was probably one of the worst decisions that I could have made. The darkness had enveloped me, and I was falling quickly. It was so easy, to just let myself fall. It was like going to sleep, everything just vanishing and becoming meaningless. There was no pain that could find me there.

But Dad, of course, found this solution unacceptable. The very next day, he had me sitting in the chair outside of a therapist's, waiting to be seen. Uncle Mycroft had already been informed, and the threat of an institution was held over my head. The therapist diagnosed me with depression and anxiety, though I managed to hide some of the largest problems with my head from her. There was no way that anyone would be allowed to find out about them. I would rather die.

It was a few weeks after the first therapy session that I discovered scissors. The entire theory behind cutting never made much sense to me, until I tried it myself. The body releases positive chemicals to help you feel better when you are injured. Thus, by making an injury, I was now able to better regulate my mood. At first, no blood was even shed, just shallow scrapes. The more I did it however, the deeper the cuts became. Eventually, I know, Dad will find my scissors too.

But at least, he doesn't know my darkest secret.

My name is Jade Holmes. This is my story.


	2. Chapter 2

Precisely two minutes before my phone alarm would ring, I woke up in my room. It was a soft yet dark blue color, decorated with diagrams of chemicals and pictures of stars. On the ceiling, the Milky Way Galaxy as was visible on March 14th, 2019 at 8:59 PM exactly had been constructed out of glow in the dark stars. Dad had scowled at me when he found out, but I left them up there anyways. The telescope I had begged for stood staring towards the wall, as if there was something to bother looking at. Otherwise, the room was extremely messy, Harry Potter novels littered around with random bits and bobs.

I slowly uncurled from underneath the covers, going through my mental checklist. Everything seemed fine. I was Jade Holmes, daughter of the world's most childish detective. Letting out a sigh of relief, I slid out of bed, shivering as the cold air hit me. The heating was always terrible on the very top floor, but I never complained about it. This was Uncle John's room when he lived with Dad, and if there was one thing I tried my hardest to do, it was to avoid _anything_ that would make Dad think about him. He would mope for days if he realized that John didn't live here anymore, instead preferring to have sex with his wife all the time.

Dad nearly walked in on them once, in retrospect. That was an amusing thing to hear about later on. Chuckling slightly, I changed out of my PJs and into blue jeans, partnered with a Doctor Who Weeping Angel t-shirt. While Dad hated anything to do with Astronomy, I was passionate about it. Time travel always appealed to me, and I spent not nearly enough time watching the television show. Moffat, simply put, had to be a genius. Evil, yes, but vastly intelligent.

"Jade, go back to bed," Dad's voice called, a cold baritone with slight tinges of affection. Dad has been acting like this a lot lately. My stomach feels as if it knots itself, knowing that to him, I seem like glass. Fragile, and about to shatter.

"Why the hell would I do that?" I ask, trying to sound sarcastic, but the end result betrays my sleepiness if anything.

Determination filling me, I finish getting dressed and walk down the stairs. My eyes scan the room, attempting to find my backpack somewhere, sitting perhaps on a chair or on the floor by the door. A quick glance confirms that it's not where I had intended to leave it. All of the experiments are there, including the analysis on the effects of white out when combined with blood (A positive, to be precise). No signs of Mrs. Hudson doing any of her cleaning, in which she believes that my notebook is overfilling. I've named it after Uncle dear. Both of them are fat and full of knowledge.

Dad chortled, holding my backpack in his hand, "Make a deduction."

Raising an eyebrow, I seriously considered whether or not he was joking. As tired as I was, I never did make too many deductions for Dad to inspect. The entire thing served to aggravate my anxiety disorder. If there was anything I tried to do my hardest, it was to impress him, whether or not I cared to admit it. Most children had an easier time at achieving it; I don't think I had ever managed to make Dad truly feel proud that he had a whiny little brat.

"Sometime today, if you don't mind," Dad added, still dangling my backpack in his fingers.

"Fine. Whatever," I muttered, sighing as I set myself to work.

It was as if time froze. Details and information about past reasons he declared I was not going to school filled into my head. The first possibility is that he believed me to be ill. Physically? It didn't quite fit. However, with my…_episode_…the odds that he found me to be mentally ill were looking good. Then there was the backpack. He wouldn't have bothered to hold it if this was simply for one day. He would have just hidden it, if that was the case. This means that there has to be something he is going to do to the backpack.

I take a deep breath, then look at the equipment set up on the table. The pieces fall into play quickly, and I realize that my backpack is going to be used for his next experiment. He doesn't believe I will need it anymore. Thus, the odds that he wants me to ever return to school seem slim. Taking another breath, as if oxygen intake could be equivalent to brain function, I piece together the rest of the puzzle. I sigh, feeling the knots in my stomach increase.

Some days, I wished that I could just run outside of the flat and cry.

"You've pulled me out of school and are going to begin homeschooling me, largely due to the events of yesterday," I stated coldly, trying to mask all emotion from my tone. Feelings never helped.

Dad nodded, his black curls bouncing a little bit as he did so, "Good, good. I see the public school system hasn't done as much damage as I feared. Mycroft largely was responsible for all the little tests you had to take, of course. I wrote an essay on—"

"I don't want to be pulled out of school," I huffed, stomping my feet a little bit as I did so. Perhaps, Dad would overestimate how much I would miss my friends and place me back in.

Under no circumstances was he to find out about my little issue. If he did, the results would be terrible, worse than when Loki tried to rule the Earth in the Avengers film. No one would be allowed to know about my secret. And the more time I spent around a person that had actual intelligence, the scarier that possibility became. I sucked in air, feeling it sharp and tingling against the inside of my mouth. My face settled back into the mask that I wished to craft, one that seemed to share a longing for a rowdy pack of friends.

A face that wasn't hiding a terrible nightmare.

"Until you have proven that you are able to be alone without causing harm to yourself, Jade, that is simply not an option," Dad uttered, dropping my backpack onto the table and covering it with a fine layer of acid, "As much as I detest this parenting charade, there is a legitimate concern for your safety."

"Why would I not be able to do that?" I scoffed, resisting the urge to scratch my arm. Any indication that my habits were real, naturally, would only serve to prove Dad's point. I had been perfecting lying to him for years.

Perhaps, this would be the time that I managed to get it right.

Dad smirked, peering over at me. His gaze was penetrating, tearing the simplest people apart in seconds. If you were lucky, it would only take him a minute to figure out everything there was about you. Regulating my breathing, I stared back at him, my face perfectly displaying confusion. The small tic I used to have as a child relatively under control, yet the nerves in my stomach began to creep up on me. The pain burned, searing through me as it spread fiery fear to each part of me. My mind began to lose its hold, yet Dad never ceased looking away.

Eventually, he chuckled and glanced away, giving me a split second to relax. Tentatively, I scratched my left hand, shivering with pleasure as an old scab burst open. The blood was minimal and easily hidden under the sleeve of my jacket. Hopefully, Dad would be far too preoccupied with destroying my backpack to notice.

After all, the world's finest detective can't always see everything, right?

"Bandages are on the top shelf," Dad murmured, pulling one down and handing it to me, "You may want to consider carrying them with you, if your habit is going to persist in such a manner. It would be inconvenient to me if you were to contract something serious, such as an infection that could have been prevented with a simple band-aid."

"Thanks for caring," I sighed, placing the tiny bandage on my hand. The real purpose of it was to keep me from scratching later. I knew how this game worked.

"Sarcasm, dear?" Dad questioned, feigning innocence, "Isn't that what parents do? Care for their children?"

"What's the matter with you? Did Uncle pass a new law?" I shot back, staring at my backpack with longing and pity. I still had my copy of _House of Hades_ in there, which I had neglected to finish. Too late now, I suppose.

"He does little else…," Dad's voice drifted off, as his attention remained focused on the backpack, "Go back to sleep. Lessons won't begin until late this evening. And I'm not going to tell you why. You can figure it out. You're a big girl, or whatever the silly expression is."

The mask that I had been keeping up crumbled. Fortunately, he continued not to look at me. Tears slowly trickled down my face, staining my cheeks. I had lasted longer than I expected to, but it didn't matter. Dad always prided himself on being a high functioning sociopath. Apparently, that title couldn't apply to me. I was _weak_. I was something that needed to be covered in bubble wrap and held close.

Another tear slid down my face. I felt numb, trying to find the strength to protest, "I'm not a child…I…I can stay in school….Please…"

He didn't turn around. Something was wrong. Time stopped again as I saw him tense, every muscle of his body ready. His brain had been thrown into overdrive, as the poor backpack slowly was hurt by the acidic layer. Neither of us were paying attention to it. Briefly, I saw someone else beside my father in the tiny flat. A small boy, crying to his older brother, claiming that he could do it. I blinked and the image was gone. It had never happened.

Dad turned around, staring at me quietly. I nodded, as if I could understand. As if I knew deep down that I was just ill and needed help. I shivered, remembering my little problem. _Could he see it?_ Fear trickled in, as something strange happened. Dad pulled me close to him, smoothing my hair as he muttered something to himself.

"The east wind will pass you by, Jade. I promise you that."

I nodded, feeling more of the tears fall. I didn't feel up to questioning Dad's behavior just yet. It would be nice to let the fairy tale continue for as long as possible in order to avoid waking up.


End file.
